Balletboyz Deluxe Welcome to Deluxe, a Programme of Brand-New Dance Made by Choreographers and Composers Working with Us for the Very First Time
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BalletBoyz Deluxe Welcome to Deluxe, a programme of brand-new dance made by choreographers and composers working with us for the very first time. Following the extraordinary circumstances we have all found ourselves in this spring, we understand that this is not how you expected to see our latest show. Although we’re devastated that we’re unable to perform Deluxe in theatres, we’re delighted that we have been able to work out a way for you to enjoy it from the comfort of your own home. When we do return to the stage, hopefully later this year, we hope that you will come and see us live! It is such a thrill to be challenged in the studio, to find new ways of expressing an idea and to learn new techniques. For Deluxe, we wanted to find new voices to develop and work with the BalletBoyz dancers. Maxine Doyle and Xie Xin have taken the work of the company in new, more physical and thought-provoking directions. Over the last 20 years we have always thrived on the thrill of new collaborations and that continues to shape our creative decisions. The point of being a repertoire company, and not choreographer-led, is precisely to be able to change direction, take risks with fresh ideas, discover new voices and reveal unexpected outcomes. Despite doing this for 20 years, we are always looking for something original. We met Xie Xin when the company was on tour in China and managed to get ourselves invited to her Shanghai studio. There she spent a little time working with the dancers and getting to know the company. We were struck by the quality of her movement language and invited her to come to London to make a piece for us. She is an incredible dancer. Her style and ability is fascinating and, as a choreographer, her challenge was to imbue our dancers with the same fluidity and detail that she instinctively possesses. Having seen some of Maxine’s work with Punchdrunk we were curious about what she would do with our company. From the start she engaged with the dancers, exploring their characters and working with them to find a suitable way of creating together. With some initial ideas as inspiration she set about discovering a vocabulary and a style which she drew from the dancers themselves. Once again, to accompany these two new works we have two original scores. Each of them offers a balance of creativity with the choreography and both Jiang Shaofeng and Cassie Kinoshi spent a great deal of time in the studio, composing in parallel with the creation of the movement. At the beginning of each Act, we have also included a short film about how the piece was made to give you an insight into the highs and lows of creating something new from scratch. This is exactly what we love: new collaborations and connections, with artists taking risks and creating new art. We hope you love it too. Please sit back, relax and enjoy the show. If you have seen our Company perform before, welcome back. If this is your first, thank you for coming. Rick Guest Front Cover photo: Front Michael Nunn OBE & William Trevitt OBE Co-founders & Artistic Directors George Piper. George Piper. BalletBoyz® Ltd Photo : George Piper unless specified otherwise All production photos: All production Deluxe Introduction from Alistair Spalding, Artistic Director of Sadler’s Wells DANCERS Joseph Barton Film The Intro – Sarah Golding Benjamin Knapper Music “The Darkies” performed by SEED Ensemble under licence from Jazz re:freshed Ltd Harry Price Liam Riddick Introduction from Michael Nunn & William Trevitt, co-Artistic Directors of BalletBoyz Matthew Sandiford Will Thompson Film The Making of Bradley 4:18 Daniel Baines (Apprentice) Act 1 Bradley 4:18 REHEARSAL DIRECTOR Interval Charlotte Pook Film The Making of Ripple Act 2 Ripple PRODUCTION MANAGER Mike Lindsay @Swooshed Event Production Co-produced by Sadler’s Wells in association with Laban Theatre LIGHTING DESIGNER Andrew Ellis DURATION 1 hour and 30 minutes, COSTUME DESIGNER including interval Katherine Watt THE PRODUCTION Company Manager Elisa Mozzanica Stage Manager Danny O’Shea Lighting Programmer Tom Mulliner Costume Maker Kingsley Hall Costume Assistant Jennifer Perault Ripple CHOREOGRAPHER Xie Xin COMPOSER Jiang Shaofeng COSTUME DESIGN Katherine Watt LIGHTING DESIGN Andrew Ellis REHEARSAL ASSISTANT Wang Qi Bradley 4:18 CHOREOGRAPHER MUSICIANS FOR RECORDING Maxine Doyle Cassie Kinoshi Alto Saxophone Miguel Gorodi Trumpet COMPOSER Elias Atkinson Trumpet Cassie Kinoshi Chelsea Carmichael Tenor Saxophone & Flute COSTUME DESIGN Joe Bristow Trombone Katherine Watt Hanna Mbuya Tuba Shirley Tetteh Guitar LIGHTING DESIGN Deschanel Gordon Piano and Keyboards Andrew Ellis Rio Kai Bass REHEARSAL ASSISTANT Patrick Boyle Drums Bradley Waller FIGHT DIRECTOR Kate Waters Maxine Doyle Bradley 4:18 Maxine is an independent choreographer and Favour (National Theatre). Opera includes Faust The work takes inspiration from the lyrics and Before beginning the process, I wondered about director. Since 2002 she has been Associate (Baden Baden) and The Cunning Little Vixen ideas of a song and poem by poet, author, the nature of my artistic and choreographic Director and Choreographer for Punchdrunk, (Glyndebourne). Recent dance theatre work spoken word artist and singer Kate Tempest, conversation with six male dancers. I wondered with whom she co-directed the multi-award includes After Lethe (Staastheater Kassel). from her album Let Them Eat Chaos. In the what we might say together about the world we winning Sleep No More (London, Boston, New Maxine is a regular principle artist at Springboard words of Pictures on a Screen Tempest currently live in. To this end, Tempest felt like York, Shanghai), The Drowned Man, The House Danse Montreal creating Hubris, Electric Sheep describes the character Bradley - a seemingly a provocative and shared point of departure. I Where Winter Lives, The Firebird Ball, Faust, and Miss D. Maxine also teaches workshops successful young man struggling to connect arrived with a clear idea about costume aesthetic: Masque of the Red Death, Tunnel 228, The internationally including the B12 festival in Berlin. with the world around him. He repeatedly a man’s suit in various states of distress, the poetic Duchess of Malfi (an operatic collaboration with asks us: ‘What am I gonna do to wake up?’ image of a man fading away. I was interested in the English National Opera and Thorsten Rasch), Mari, Maxine’s first feature film collaboration I love Tempest’s words - the way she seems idea of violence as a way to wake ourselves up to and The Yellow Wallpaper. with writer director Georgia Paris and dancer to articulate the feelings of a contemporary the world, and the emotional residue of this. Bobbi-Jene Smith, premiered in October 2018 as generation. She magically evokes provocation Maxine has an MA in Choreography from Trinity part of the London Film Festival. and empathy through imagery and dialogue. Composer Cassie Kinoshi has been in the studio Laban and is a recipient of the Bonnie Bird watching, writing and playing throughout. To begin choreography award. She was Artistic Director of Recent projects include the new works 4:18 I have worked very collaboratively with the our collaboration, we shared playlists of musical First Person Dance Company from 1996 - 2003 for Verve Dance Company (UK), Deo for dancers both in terms of movement language influences and film references. This helped us touring works such as Deja Deux, In the Face Martha Graham Dance Company (USA) in and ideas. They have shaped the work - its to work out pretty quickly our individual tastes. of a Stranger, Plastic Chill and It’s Only a Game collaboration with Bobbi-Jene Smith, and the atmosphere, direction and movement language. For me, identifying a shared taste is the essence show. critically acclaimed dance theatre work Sunset In my creative process I love the synthesis of a fruitful collaboration. We talked about commissioned by Strut Dance and the Perth between the dancers’ creature instinct and ‘atmosphere’, ‘dramatic tone’, and dream-like and Her work for theatre includes Evening at the Talk Festival 2019. creative generosity. With the BalletBoyz I was real worlds. We wanted to create the feeling of a House (National Theatre), Electra (Old Vic), The interested in seeing and exploring both their strange city at 04:18 in the morning. The music Changeling (Young Vic), Hamlet (Young Vic), The www.maxinedoyle.com theatrical performance persona and personality. developed as a soundtrack to Bradley’s restless Children’s Hour (The West End), Timon of Athens This became my fascination. yet absent self, its many voices a reflection of his (The Globe) and Every Good Boy Deserves existential dilemma and his attempt to wake up. Xie Xin Ripple Xie Xin is the creator and Artistic Director of Recently Xie Xin has worked as a dancer for I wanted to explore a movement style partly I’ve worked with composer Jiang Shaofeng many Xiexin Dance Theatre (XDT) and is an Associate Guangdong Modern Dance Company, Shanghai inspired by the memory of a person in your mind. times and his score for Ripple is highly detailed. Artist of the Shanghai International Dance Centre Jinxing Dance Theater, Beijing Tao Dance Like a storm on quiet body of water, I wanted The choreography was carefully created on the Theatre and jury member of the Lotus Prize. Theatre and Beijing Dance LDTX. In recent years, to express the continuous variations in the flow BalletBoyz dancers to interact with these details In addition to this, she is a guest professor Xie Xin’s work with XDT has been performed at of energy that such memories and feelings in very subtle ways, that build and build over time.